These are the best times to work for someone else! Holding a job has never been this fun

Burgeoning traffic in and around New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru has forced employees to find alternative ways to reach their respective offices.

While some of them reach quite early to avoid traffic woes at peak hours, some prefer working from most of the times.

Surprisingly, few employers have understood the problem and are coming up with innovative ways so that employees don’t have a problem.
Few employers have relaxed work schedules and others have encouraged working from home and shared transportation.

Some are even taking offices closer to where their employees live so that they can worry less about the commute and focus more on work.
Bengaluru's SAP Labs doesn't monitor entry and exit timings and employees have a free hand in deciding when to get to work and leave.

As per a survey by Ford in India, 97% of the respondents were stressed out about bumper-to-bumper traffic, a fear of accidents and in some cases, even parking hassles. Almost half the drivers on Indian roads - more than in any other country covered in the Ford survey - spent about 12 hours every week, or about 100 minutes every day, in their cars.

Also, few local units of Coca-Cola and Sapient have introduced flexi work hours that help employees avoid rush-hour traffic.

"We start 30 minutes early at 8:30 am and close by 5:15 pm in order to beat the peak traffic hours," said Sameer Wadhawan, vice president for human resources & services at Coca-Cola.

"Traffic in Gurgaon is a big challenge," said Bacardi managing director Vijay Subramaniam. "We have had to resort to means such as three work timing slots in a day, encouraging working from home and car pooling to drive around this issue... We encourage members to use the metro, too."

Talking about Gurgaon, even authorities are taking steps to ease traffic congestion.

"We are asking all our employees to make maximum use of the increased public transport facility on car-free Tuesdays. The reduction in the number of cars will also help reduce pollution," said Sanjay Rishi, president of AmEx South Asia, which has offices on Golf Course Road and Cyber City.

In other parts of the country, Infosys is promoting options such as buses, cabs and cycles for its more than 1.79 lakh employees. In Pune, Infosys has launched a campaign, "Ab Bus Karo," to encourage employees to take company buses to its development centre.

SAP allows employees to work from home once a week, a frequency that can be increased by their reporting managers.

KPMG India has a smooth working policy, which allows people to "work from anywhere" - be it a client location or home, provided that the role can be executed virtually and that productivity, performance and timelines are not hampered.

(Image: Thinkstock)